


Red: The Color of...

by caibi



Series: What Makes a Ladybug [2]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Identities Known
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-08
Updated: 2015-11-08
Packaged: 2018-04-30 13:26:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5165456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caibi/pseuds/caibi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Red: the color of sunburns, candies, and ladybug shells.<br/>(can be read as a standalone fic, but the first part provides some background)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Red: The Color of...

**Author's Note:**

> some of you wanted a sequel to freckles and dots, so i'm here to provide! this bit follows adrien and marinette's relationship post-reveal; how they deal with their identities and respective crushes and so on. enjoy!  
> edit: tumblr user yaushie did some [awesome art](http://yaushie.tumblr.com/post/132967011594/some-adrinette-inspired-by-two-fics-all-i-want) for this fic and for [All I Want](http://pallasjoannas.tumblr.com/post/132877953453/all-i-want-a-miraculous-ladybug-fanfic) by pallasjoannas. you should all check it out!

She had only noticed her mistake once she felt her face burning.

It was late spring, and arguably the most blisteringly hot day that Paris had faced this year. The cloudless sky offered no buffer against the sun's merciless rays as pedestrians scrambled to reach the shade of trees or awnings.

Swinging from rooftop to rooftop, Ladybug spared these details no second thoughts. It was just another day, another akuma to fight, and her ever-present cat at her side. In a flurry of _Lucky Charms_  and _Cataclysms_  and _Miraculous Cleansing Lights_ , the battle swept to a finish. This left a heavily panting superhero duo atop a random roof, begging for air as their adrenaline waned.

In the sheer rapidity of the chase, Ladybug had felt little, if any, discomfort. Be it due to heat or sweat or muscle fatigue, the heroine was too preoccupied to care. Once the flurry of movement wound down, however, it hit her like a brick wall. Her costume felt sticky and her movements lethargic. Chat looked no better. They were each curled in on themselves, hands on knees and panting wildly.

It was after she had recognized each medium of discomfort, one after the other, that she came to a very sudden realization. It was after her discovery that she was sweaty, that her bangs were plastered to her temples and her suit bunched up at the elbows. After she found herself to be parched and her mouth dry. After she found that her body temperature was much higher than anything she could possibly be satisfied with. 

She had forgotten sunblock.

Ladybug could feel her face flaming. She reached up to touch her fingertips to her blazing cheeks, probing for signs of a burn. As expected, they stung at the contact.

"Oh no," Ladybug lamented, drawling the vowels in regret. 

"My Lady?" Chat implored, though still quite out of breath. 

She raised her face to her partner and said, with a pout "H-how bad is the burn? Be honest..."

Chat stepped closer and raised his hand slowly, as if to touch her cheek, but stopped it before meeting the skin. "It's, uh...it's pretty bad." Chat Noir tilted his head questioningly. "You didn't apply anything before you came? Not even before school? You knew it was going to be hot outside today."

"Yeah I-I guess I just forgot? It just didn't come to mind and I - Oh my gosh I feel so stupid."

"Ah, don't say that my Lady! You're still perfect as ever. A little sunburn wouldn't tarnish that."

Ladybug blushed a bit, though it was hard to tell beneath the layer of red already covering her face. It was still a bit weird to hear Chat keep up his flirting ever since their reveal. It was so overwhelmingly _normal_ that it rattled and relieved her all at once. "Yeah," she responded, offering an inkling of a smile. 

"When you get home, apply aloe or something. Get a cool, damp rag if you don't have that. Do _not_ pick at any blisters, okay?" He was staring, searching her eyes worriedly.

"Okay."

* * *

 

" _Adrien!_ "

The boy had to separate the phone from his ear momentarily, the shriek nearly blowing hit eardrums out. 

After a few seconds, Adrien recovered. "Marinette? What is it? What do you need?"

"I've got a problem and-and it's not exactly something I can talk to Alya about, and-and-and-"

"Marinette, calm down! You're rambling. What's the problem?"

 

One Camembert bribe later, Chat Noir was throwing himself through the top-floor window of the Dupain-Cheng family bakery. He could always count on Plagg to cooperate if cheese was involved, and transformation was the fastest and most reliable method of transportation so late at night. 

Once through the window, he let up his transformation and returned to his street clothes.

"Chat!" Marinette exclaimed, hands covering half of her face. "Er, Adrien. Uh..." The dual identities thing was still quite new to the pair of heroes. One week after the reveal, they were still working on consolidating their personas, mix-and-matching personalities and behavioral quirks. Marinette was much less hesitant and squeaky around Adrien now, and Adrien was starting to open up to her with a teasing, lighthearted familiarity. It was still hard to figure out how to address one another; there was a constant worry that they'd shout their alter egos' names in the middle of class, while battling akuma.

They were starting to become comfortable around each other, both in costume and out.

Adrien laughed. "It's alright. So what about that sunburn?"

Marinette peeled her hands away from her face.

"Oh," Adrien's face dropped. There, around her eyes, was a strip of light skin. Just beneath a well-defined line, her skin burned bright red. Her Ladybug costume had left her with a glaringly obvious mask-shaped sunburn.

"It's awful! I don't know what to do! This isn't something I could ask anyone to help with. Not my mom, not Alya..." Marinette heaved a breath. "It'd become obvious that I was wearing a mask, and that I'm Ladybug, and the questions wouldn't end and I'd be forced to stop hero work if my mom had any say in the matter. Or god forbid Alya found out, and I'd have to give interview after interview for her blog and-"

"Marinette. _Marinette_ ," Adrien tried to interrupt. When that failed, he tried "My Lady."

At that, Marinette shut her mouth, but left her brow furrowed and lips curled down in a frown.

"I doubt that Alya would force you to reveal your identity on her blog."

Marinette raised an eyebrow at that.

"Okay. Maybe she would," Adrien scratched the back of his neck. "That's beside the point. We've got to fix this burn. Or at least cover it up."

Adrien, being the model he was, had always been in the habit of wearing sunblock. As soon as spring rolled around, he was applying it nearly every day. If he wanted to look good for the cameras, his complexion had to be flawless. There were, however, ways of rectifying a blotchy face, as he would relay encouragingly to Marinette. Little tips here and there he had picked up that would have an uneven skin tone looking as close to its proper color as possible.

He took Marinette's face, gently, by the jaw. He turned her head this way and that, examining it in the light. This physical closeness was a very Chat-like thing to do, and he wouldn't normally initiate contact without warning. Marinette, on the other hand, barely blinked at the motion. She was never one to be afraid or uncomfortable with touch. Only with Adrien, before he had exposed himself as Chat Noir, was she ever a nervous wreck with the approximation. And now that they were the same person, and for the fact that she was accustomed to Chat's antics, Marinette was mostly unaffected. 

Except for the little flutter she felt in her stomach.

"You know, your freckles stand out even more when your face is red," Adrien chuckled.

Marinette spluttered in protest.

"Alright, alright," He coughed. "I brought some things over in the case that you didn't have any. Let's see..." He slid a small string bag from his shoulder and started rifling through it. "I've got aloe lotion. I hope you've applied some already," Adrien said, looking up at Marinette's face for confirmation. After a short nod in return, he turned his attention back to his bag. "Uh, what else? Foundation, concealer and the like. Blush and bronzer and all that good stuf. Some brushes. And snacks!" Adrien held up a bag of chips and a tin of sweets.

Marinette laughed in a way that reminded him of Ladybug. "Okay, silly kitty. Shall we get started?"

 

The next hour saw Marinette sat on her vanity's stool, Adrien parked on the rolling desk chair in front of her. He had reapplied the aloe to her face and neck, then opened the bag of chips to snack on while it dried a bit. He snapped open the sweets tin to reveal a handful of small red candies and a couple of cookies, for which Tikki was grateful. She nibbled as Plagg looked on in envy, pestering Adrien every now and then for not bringing Camembert. Marinette told him that there was cheese down in the bakery's kitchen that he was free to take, so long as he was quiet on his way.

"Adrien, I'm telling you, you gotta marry this girl," Plagg stated upon his return, tiny arms stacked full of cheese.

The two teens flushed a bright red (Marinette even redder than before, if that was possible), and Tikki scolded him for being so blunt.

Adrien soon returned his attention to his partner's burn, telling her "I don't think it's entirely possible to cover the burn completely, but we'll just need to conceal the mask line. We can make the flush look more natural, though, so that it's more diluted and not so bright. Your face will still look pretty red."

Marinette sighed. "I thought as much. Well, it'll be embarrassing at school tomorrow, but at least I won't look like a walking Ladybug advertisement."

The two giggled a bit, and Adrien went to work. His job had allowed him to be exposed to the wide world of cosmetics, so he had enough experience to make Marinette's burn look pretty decent. Though by no stretch was he a professional, he did the deed well. He started with the foundation, and the concealer right at the spot where her natural skin color met the raw burn across her cheeks. The bronzer mostly filled in the area above the mask line, but he made sure to even it out. A bit of blush finished off the look, and Marinette was set.

She peered into the mirror as Adrien looked on, inspecting his work. 

"It looks...it looks surprisingly good!" Marinette noted. "I mean, I definitely still look red, but I can't see where the mask was at all!"

Adrien glowed with pride. "Why, I try, my Lady."

"Slow down there, kitty," Marinette giggled fondly. "Thank you so much."

"It was no problem," Adrien blushed.

"No really, I don't know what I'd have done without you. You're the only one who could have helped, and I'm really very grateful."

Marinette smiled shyly at him, momentarily reverting to the nervous teen girl she had seemed to be a week ago.

Adrien repaid her smile with a warm one of his own, and took his partner's hand in his own. "Of course, my Lady," He whispered, and kissed the back of it.

He let his lips stay there for a few moments, and looked up at Marinette's eyes. They held each other's gaze until Adrien let her hand fall, and she looked away nervously.

"Well, Marinette, I must be going. I can't be late to our first class again," he winked. 

"No you can't, silly kitty. Get going and get some rest. I'll be counting on you in the case of another akuma attack, understand?"

He chuckled. "But of course."

After Plagg bid his farewell and initiated his transformation, Chat Noir turned to leave. As he knelt in the window frame, Marinette caught his hand. 

"Chat," she said.

Chat looked around at her and replied "Hm?" just as she pulled him back. She had pulled him flush against her, wrapping her arms about his waist and mumbling "Thank you Adrien" into the front of his suit. Chat put his arms around the girl, pressing his hands into Marinette's shoulders and humming into her hair. It should have been a bit more odd, really, for Chat to be hugging Marinette, his Ladybug in civilian clothes. But for some reason, they just seemed to fit. Regardless of the outfit or character.

With a light nudge from Marinette, they separated. She crossed her arms and gave him a stern look, broken only by a playful smile. "Now you've really gotta go, kitty. It's late."

"Of course, my Lady. Goodnight," and he was off into the night.

* * *

Class the next morning was preceded by a sharp hiss of _"Adrien"_ into the boy's ear.

He jumped, catlike, in surprise. "Marinette, you nearly gave me a heart attack," he said once he discovered the owner of the voice just behind him.

"I need your help," she whispered, and pointed to a spot on her right cheek. It was red and blotchy, and Adrien got the hint immediately. He told Nino, who had been walking with him, that he'd meet him in class, and to go meet up with Alya who was likely already there. The other boy nodded and left, unquestioning.

Marinette grabbed Adrien's hand and pulled him to the locker room. At her own locker, she pulled out the bag of cosmetics that Adrien had left at her house the night before. "I need you to help me cover this. It smudged while I slept. Please?"

Adrien laughed at Marinette's insistence and complied.

 

If there were rumors later that day that Adrien Agreste was in the empty locker room cupping Marinette Dupain-Cheng's face and looking lovingly into her eyes, well, that wasn't his problem.

 

**Author's Note:**

> spoiler alert: it was chloe who saw adrien and marinette together, and thus the rumor was born.  
> i think this may be it for this particular series, but i've got other ideas planned for more ladynoir fics


End file.
